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the explosion was 29 miles from where We live. this morns news said
the gas co was called by many neighbors for the last 3 weeks complaining of a strong gas odor. They [PGE ] did nothing! No question they own this!The odor was so strong one Man said He could smell it from the Hi Way driving by. No brainier how this
explosion came about! Maybe BP can do a PR for PG&E

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

If a leak from such a high pressure line, I'd expect it to be audible and noticeable and easily discovered.

The "explosion" would have been a mechanical burst. The very high pressure gas now freed to atmosphere then futher expanded throwing the soil up producing the crater.
It was not combustion of the gas which created the "explosion".

Since oxygen is not evenly mixed into the gas as it escapes into the air, the gas would flare, not efficiently explosively combust.

Last edited by Robert Gift; 09-11-2010, 02:25 PM.
Reason: I was too succinct and unclear.

Comment

typical natural gas is flammable/ explosive between 4-14% gas to air ratio. if it's leaking underground and eventually surfacing, the gas to air ratio will eventually be met. in this case it was met with an explosive outcome.

the more gas that is trapped, the more potential for an explosions as i will eventually surface. the initially explosion allowed the trapped gas to escape and fuel the fire.

rick.

phoebe it is

Comment

As I walk, delivering mail, I often come upon a familiarly faint, pungent odor. Every report that I have called in has brought out a PG&E utility truck to investigate and repair. I find it hard to believe that they would ignore this one. And if it could be detected a few blocks away, on the freeway, the concentration would be so great at the source that any passing car would ignite it.

A few weeks ago, we lost a postal vehicle, just 25 miles south from San Bruno, in Los Altos Hills. The driver of the vehicle drove and stopped right on top of the rupture, went on to make a delivery and ignited the gas leak as she started the vehicle. This one was just a small ruptured line leading to one residence.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdijM0OkYzc

As I walk, delivering mail, I often come upon a familiarly faint, pungent odor. Every report that I have called in has brought out a PG&E utility truck to investigate and repair. I find it hard to believe that they would ignore this one. And if it could be detected a few blocks away, on the freeway, the concentration would be so great at the source that any passing car would ignite it.

A few weeks ago, we lost a postal vehicle, just 25 miles south from San Bruno, in Los Altos Hills. The driver of the vehicle drove and stopped right on top of the rupture, went on to make a delivery and ignited the gas leak as she started the vehicle. This one was just a small ruptured line leading to one residence.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdijM0OkYzc

Watch local tv,It's all over our news,and talk radio!!!!

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

Comment

It reminds me of when i called the gas co for a gas leak they had
after they had been there many times by calls from the tenants over months
You could smell it faintly in the building and by the front door coming out of a small crack were the side walk met the build

I think they stop taking it seriously if no one finds any thing the first time they get a call about it .. and basically blow them off when they call again
They show up but dont look any harder

PG&E showed up in strength many times. Mulled around. When folks asked Questions, they played cop and said nothing ! We're all pissed!
To You doubting Thomas's , " THE TRUTH WILL OUT. On My own home a sub of pg%e found a leak months ago from street to My meter ,not fixed!

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

Comment

Theres talk (just ideas at this point) of running a high pressure gas line less then a 1/2 mile from my home. It would be a good deal for the state, but I'm not so sure I'm liking the idea.

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Could the postal worker not have driven his vehicle forward and away from the just ignited natural gas leak, especially to save the mail?

As I understand, the starter cranking ignited the gas, the motor didn't start.

Contruction crews working nearby, who reported the leak and were waiting for PG&E, did not divert the vehicle around the leak?! - They allowed the truck to stop ON the leak?!

The construction crew moved back to a safe distance after cutting the line, leaving the area coned off. I would like to know how she explained her way around that one. The smell is so powerful, you could smell it a block away before you even get near the danger zone. and the ruptured pipe makes a laud hizz sound, not to mention the area had been coned off by the construction crew.

This was a leak from a distribution line which was ignited by the vehicle.
Not a powerful mechanical rupture of a high pressure transmission pipe.

This is a little example of everyone following proper procedure after an accident, except for a clueless postal worker showing up.

Sometimes I have detected odors on someone's lawn but the repairs have taken place across the street, a pipeline this big and deep could have been saturating the ground and the gas surfacing far from the actual fault.

In this current tragedy, I even heard one reporter insinuating that PG&E failed to add odorant to the pipeline.

My question is why would anyone continue living in their home if they detect gas odors all around their house?

Comment

All transmission line owners have been told they need to do inspections of their lines due to age. Most of the transmission lines we use in this country for petroleum products and NG are over 50 years old. The corrosion protection products available back then were no where near the service life of those we have now. In stead of putting all these tax dollars into paving contracts, some of it needs to go into loans (NOT grants) to the transmission line owners to upgrade their infrastructure.

Why should we loan money for them to fix a privately owned commodity? Because of the threat that it poses to the general public AND because the federal government is partly to blame for not having stricter regulations and inspections requirements (or for not enforcing them), AND because a wholesale breakdown of these pipelines would be catastrophic to our economy.

The past 25 years of "fix it later" are catching up with us. This was all driven by the 'new age' style of management that robbed pension funds blind and moved jobs overseas all in the name of improving profit ratios and increasing dividends to stockholders. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing, it's big business being managed by wall street profit makers instead of people who know what it takes to keep the business operating soundly. But both parties had a hand in creating the current situation, they passed legislation (or didn't) that allowed it to happen in exchange for contributions to their political war chests.

WE MUST STOP PUTTING OFF TO TOMORROW WHAT NEEDS FIXING TODAY. By doing so we are ensuring that we will not be competitive in the global marketplace.

What do you think would happen if we lost a dozen transmission lines across the country? Fuel prices would skyrocket and product availability would be intermittent or just not available at all. Some of us would be sitting in the dark and in the cold.

If you have a transmission line running through your town, I suggest you go to your next town meeting and ask what is being done to ensure they are safe. Ask it in a public forum such as a council meeting or ask it in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper because this is where everyone will find out about it and start to ask questions too. If you call and ask no one gets the answer (provided one is forthcoming) but you.

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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You might not hear things this way, but it's probably closer to the truth..

"Pacific Gas and Electric President Chris Johns has said the company was scouring phone records and had not found evidence that complaint calls were placed." could also sound like, "After we cleaned the phone records of any evidence, we found none that any complaint calls were made"!!

PG&E has such a stellar record of open and forthright, honesty and trustworthiness, that it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did a little bit of "shredder action" on records, to keep from having to pay out, big time. Think of the whole Erin Brokovich story, if you will.